Denver Nuggets get back on track with victory over Grizzlies

Denver Nuggets star center Nikola Jokic led the way in the Nuggets 104-92 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies Friday night at Pepsi Center.

After a tough loss to the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night, the Nuggets bounced back with a strong victory over the Memphis Grizzlies. The Nuggets led the way most of the night and outscored the Grizzlies in three of the four quarters. The third quarter was one of the Nuggets roughest quarters of the year and allowed Memphis to crawl back into the ball game. Memphis outscored the Nuggets 29-15 in the third quarter and really forced the Nuggets to ramp it up in the fourth.

The fourth quarter was all Nikola Jokic and Gary Harris. Jokic finished the night with 28 points, 13 rebounds, and eight assists. Falling just two assists shy of a triple-double, Jokic was a force in the post all night and shot an efficient 11-17 from the field, 2-5 from behind the three-point line. Harris was his consistent self on Friday night and contributed on both the offensive and defensive end of the court. Harris scored 15 points, brought down four rebounds, dished out three assists, and played a team high 38 minutes, but Harris’s defense was the highlight of his game. Harris had four big steals, which contributed to some easy fast break opportunities for the Nuggets.

Some other leaders for the Nuggets were Jamal Murray who scored 15 points, six rebounds, and four assists. Murray was also second on the team in minutes played with 37 strong minutes of action. Kenneth Faried drew the start at the power forward spot after not playing in the Nuggets game at Houston on Wednesday. Faried filled in well playing 31 minutes and scoring 14 points on 3-3 from the field, 8-12 from the free-throw line. This Faried block showed us the vintage Manimal the Nuggets hope to continue to see the rest of the season.

No one on the Nuggets bench scored in double-figures, but the team did get some good bench minutes from Trey Lyles. Lyles played 17 minutes and scored six points and added in four rebounds. Lyles shot 2-4 from the field, 1-2 from three, and hopefully solidified some more bench minutes moving forward. As a team the Nuggets shot 50.6 percent from the field and out rebounded the Grizzlies 50-23. One thing the Nuggets can work on from tonight is the turnovers as they committed 21. Those 21 turnovers turned into 29 Grizzlies points and were a big factor of what gave the Grizzlies life going into the fourth quarter.

As for Memphis , they were led by JaMychal Green, who scored a team high 21 points in the losing effort. The Nuggets did a fairly good job of containing Memphis big man Marc Gasol as Gasol scored just 15 points on 5-13 shooting. Gasol was the assists leader for the game though and dished out 14 assists on the night. The Grizzlies are now in the mist of a seven game losing streak and are 7-11 on the season. Memphis will now head home to take on the Brooklyn Nets Sunday night.

The Nuggets are now 11-8 on the season and are in a three-way-tie with Minnesota and Portland for fourth place in the Western Conference. Denver now has three days off till they are back in action at Utah on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. MST. That game will be televised nationally on ESPN.